Game Quickies 12/02/07

Kirby's Dream Land (GB)
You'd have to have the attention span of a flea or severe brain damage to not beat this game on your first try.
Rating: Lame

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Gamecube / E)
There's a only five real dungeons in the game, several mini-dungeons, many of which consist of little more than killing of bunch of enemies, and lots and lots of fluff. That part near the end where you find eight maps to the Triforce pieces, then pay Tingle 400 rupees a map to translate them when they shouldn't need to be translated because they're just pictures, then go fish out the Triforce pieces (if you got the Incredible Chart from Tingle earlier this is all a little less tedious because you don't have to keep track of what the fish tell you about the "Triumph Forks") is when I really started hating this game. And WTF at Ganon's Tower? You go in, have a boss rehash, go through a repeating room maze, fight the most embarassing boss Zelda has ever had, and then fight Ganon, the end.
Rating: Bad

Bonk's Adventure (TG-16)
Crappy platformer that would be laughable with its absence of level design, but the horrible controls made it infuriating.
Rating: Garbage

Scurge Hive (DS / E10+)
Nobody is going to tell me Metroid Fusion wasn't a major inspiration here, and in fact, the main character even looks like Zero Suit Samus with really long red hair. And at its gameplay it wants to be a 3D isometric Metroid, but is held back by the infection meter. If they had either scrapped it altogether or maybe just made it tick up slower, they could have had something here. But as it is, there's save points every five rooms - save points that not only reset the infection meter and save the game, but also restore your HP - and every time I started to get absorbed by the world I'd be pulled out of it by that grainy heartbeat that starts when the meter is at 60% and have to head to a savepoint. Common enemies are more annoying than anything to fight, but the bosses are okay. Also, why is this game rated a E10+? Sure, it's not on the level of, say, Resident Evil, but there's some pretty graphic imagery and text here.
Rating: Decent

ChuChu Rocket (Dreamcast / E)
Okay, we all know what a fan I am of Lemmings. If this is news to you, welcome to the site. So it's no surprise I'd adore this, too. 100 levels of critter saving madness, many levels find their own ways to trick you into thinking you solve it one way, but the real solution comes only after thinking out of the box. Some of them are just neat to watch play out after you solve them. Then there's the Level Challenges. Some are easy, some are tricky, and some are just plain mean. If I have one complaint, it's that all the levels look the same and have the same music. That, and the Chuchus have invaded my mind, although I'm not sure if that's a complaint. Seriously, I see them running around whenever I close my eyes, I look at the paragraphs in my textbooks and starting wondering how they would run around them, and daydream in class about things to incorporate intro the Puzzle Editor.
Rating: Great

Gate of Thunder (TG-SCD)
Another bland TurboGrafx shooter, but unlike Psychosis this game isn't even trying. My biggest beef is how often I get killed, but can't figure out what even hit me. Half the time, it's an enemy or projectile that meshed with the busy mess of a background. My second biggest beef is how many times I was just sitting there with my thumb on the Fire button, and the enemies were flying right into my bullets. My third biggest beef is how almost all the levels look the same and the enemies and bosses are generic machines that often look like toys. Music ain't bad, though.
Rating: Limp